Automation- the latest panacea for marketing?

During my recent trip to the US, the one area that every marketing head I met mentioned as a high

priority was marketing automation. While I was quite familiar with some of the more popular tools and

also understood broadly what marketing automation could do, I was more than a little intrigued by the

repeated mention and so decided to do some homework. This post demystifies marketing automation

and also makes a case for why companies must begin to think about it.

What is marketing automation?

According to Marketo, a leader in this segment, marketing automation refers to tools and software that

‘can streamline, automate, and measure marketing tasks and workflows’ to increase efficiency and

also accelerate revenues.

Hubspot, another market leader chooses to describe market automation in a more interesting way.

The company says that Marketing automation is software and tactics that allow companies to buy and

sell like Amazon — that is, to nurture prospects with highly personalized, useful content that helps

convert prospects to customers and turn customers into delighted customers.

At Prayag, we believe that marketing automation is simply a means to an end of making marketing

more effective and accountable, and provide better business results. It does not just take software to

do this though- one needs a vision for such an initiative, which links back to business priorities and

challenges, solid prep work to ensure that investments in tools and software gives the desired

outcome, including a team that is trained in the use of the software and can interpret the results, and

finally the tools and software itself.

Why marketing automation?

Come to think of it, Marketing automation is not entirely a new idea. Automation of the marketing

function has been done in a piece meal fashion for more than a decade now. Be it CRM software,

campaign management and email marketing, they have all been in existence for a while now. More

recently we have seen a plethora of analytics tools for the web and social media. In fact, I even recall

some discussions with clients in the early 2000s on lead nurturing and management programs

facilitated through technology. What the new approach to marketing automation does though is to

take an integrated view of what needs to be done in marketing to deliver better business outcomes.

Also, with the exponential rise in availability of customer data in a variety of formats, and the

advancement in tools to aid personalization and real-time measurements, today marketing automation

can be really sophisticated and deliver measurable results.

No wonder then that Gartner has magic quadrant for MA software, and IDC predicts that the market

for such software will grow to nearly 5 B USD by 2015.

What does marketing automation encompass?

Typically MA platforms are comprehensive and handle many workflows including

• email marketing

• lead nurturing and campaign management

• In bound marketing

• Analytics- web and social

• Sales tool integration

What are the popular platforms?

Being a ‘hot’ area, there are a number of companies in this segment -most prominent and reputed

among them include Hubspot, Marketo, Eloqua and Pardot. Other aspirants include Exactmarket,

Infusionsoft, Leadsquared, Calliduscloud etc.

What are the results?

Despite all the hype and its potential to deliver results, at the present time, the jury is still out on what

MA has delivered for business. The reason for this is not because of the concept being faulty but

more because of the way companies have approached implementation of MA.

What is next?

So, should companies consider marketing automation? Yes, the benefits are too good to ignore. That

being said, companies intending to automate their marketing function should start with a thorough

analysis of their current marketing and business context. Next, examine how marketing automation

can help achieve marketing’s and in turn business goals, put down an automation roadmap, select the

right platform, prepare for automation and then embark on the implementation.

Would be great to hear from companies that have explored or experimented with automation tools or

platforms. Do you agree that marketing automation is the way forward?

Written by Sudha

With over two decades of experience in consulting and marketing, Sudha Kumar is Prayag’s master

mentor. She has worked previously with Infosys before making the foray into technology marketing

consulting as a co-founder of Prayag. She enjoys writing, particularly blogging, and firmly believes

that Web 2.0 and social media have altered the rules of the game in marketing.

Also see more info @ http://www.prayag.com